The Power of Listening to Cultivate Deep Respect for People

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Bob Bertsch: Hi, thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I’m Bob. My co-host, Jessica, is here as well, and today we’ll be talking about active listening and the concept of deep respect. Jessica will be sharing a practice with us around that topic. Hey, Jessica, how are you today?

Jessica Beckendorf: I’m doing all right. It’s been sunny here all day, which has been really nice. It’s especially interesting because everything in our yard looks very strange right now, because our neighbor had this huge, gigantic old willow that they just had to take down, unfortunately, because of a storm. It had split all the way down the middle. It was really weird to see a tree that strong, or seemingly that strong. I know willows aren’t the strongest trees, but it was so weird to see it just split all the way down the trunk. Now it has completely changed the landscape of our backyard.

I love to look at stars at night, so there’s been a great opportunity there. I love seeing the sky just in general, but it has been weird, too. What it’s really made me think about, that and as I shared with you before we started recording, we lost one of our cats recently as well. Both of those things, while my cat was in hospice, at home hospice for the last couple of weeks, and as we saw the feel and look of our entire yard change, I just really started to think a lot about those changes that we have no control over at all. There are lots of changes that we have zero control over.

I know that intuitively, but I think as someone who is a proponent of people working together toward change, and I think in my LinkedIn I even have something like change champion, it’s really frustrating when you are faced with these things that you have no influence even, over. I think those are the times that community support are really needed. Thinking about that has made me ponder, well, what about the times when there are issues that anyone in the community, or everyone in the community, can have influence over? That’s really, I think, when community action is needed. These are things that I know, but I was really forced to do some deep thoughts over.

Bob: Thanks for sharing that. Sorry for your loss, both of your losses. I’m glad you brought up community action and us banding together, because something that I just stumbled across recently speaks to that a little bit. It was a Harvard Business Review article from 2023. It’s called Four Phases That Build a Culture of Curiosity, by Scott Shigeoka. The four phrases that Scott shares are, I don’t know, tell me more, I understand that you’re more than your job, and who else? I’m going to focus on that last one. That last phrase just reminded me of something that you said in a conversation we had in September, in the episode Applying Systems Thinking to Local Issues.

You shared a practice in that episode, and you asked us to ask ourselves this question. Is there someone whose experience needs articulation, but who is currently not present? Who is that? That question from the article, who else, seem to take your question and apply it to, I guess, a little different situation than I had been thinking of it in, just in everyday life and work, when can we ask ourselves, who else could we ask about this? Who else is our decision that we’re making impacting? Who else could help us with this? Maybe that speaks a little bit to what you were talking about with people rallying together.

Jessica: Yes, I love that. I love that you listen so closely to me. [laughs] Actually, I just want to give the credit where credit is due. That question, is there someone whose experience needs articulation, but who is currently not present, actually came from our mutual acquaintance, Bjørn Peterson, in his work. It’s one of my favorite questions. I’m glad that it sounds like I’ve incorporated it so much into who I am as a person, that [chuckles] it sounds like it came from me, but it definitely came from his work. I think it’s just absolutely profound.

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Bob: Let’s learn more about deep respect and how to cultivate it. Jessica, can you tell us a little bit more about the practice you’ll be sharing and why you chose it?

Jessica: Yes, of course. The concept of deep respect is rooted in frameworks like the asset-based community development that we’ve talked about before, or you might have heard us refer to it as ABCD, and the principles from liberating structures, which we just talked about in a previous episode. These approaches remind us that communities are filled with untapped potential and knowledge. When we genuinely listen, and we engage with the local voices who are part of that untapped potential and knowledge, we not only honor their experiences, but we also facilitate their own empowerment to create solutions that work best for their unique context.

I chose this activity because I’ve used it a lot. This is like one of my go to activities I use in groups, or I’ve used in meetings, right? Even a simple meeting, you can use this in. I think it does a really good job of honoring the different ways that people prefer to communicate and share, which really maximizes the chances that everyone’s voices will be included and heard. That’s crucial for practicing deep respect. Think about a time when you felt deeply respected in a conversation. What made that experience meaningful? For me, it has always involved feeling heard, and like I’m making a meaningful contribution.

Of course, I hope I make others feel just as respected and heard. This idea of when you felt deeply respected, and what made that meaningful, and how you might be able to bring that forward, these two questions on their own, I think would be a great practice for deep respect. Just asking yourself to recall a time you felt deeply respected in a conversation, and identifying what made that experience meaningful to you, and then asking, how can you replicate that feeling for others? Even that alone would be a great practice. Before you go into a meeting where you’re trying to get everyone’s voice to feel heard.

Bob: Yes, that’s awesome. I really appreciate it because we’re digging a little bit deeper here. We’re going beyond just getting people into the room and practicing inclusion. This seems to be really speaking to practicing belonging as well. I’d love to hear the practice you have around this. Would you walk us through it?

Jessica: Yes. The practice is called 1-2-4-All. It involves active listening. We’ve talked about listening on the podcast before, but I would say that most of the time we were talking about the nuts and bolts of one-on-one communication, or how you can practice the listening. I want to remind everyone though, that this isn’t just about hearing words, it’s about seeking understanding and truly understanding and valuing what someone is sharing. Engaging in genuine active listening can have the effect of increasing psychological safety during change efforts, which is really important for change efforts.

To put this into practice during a group or community change effort, you could use this 1-2-4-All activity to allow individuals to reflect individually before discussing then in pairs, and then groups of four, and then sharing with a larger group. This structure ensures that everyone has a chance to contribute their thoughts. We’ll share a link to all of the notes for carrying out this activity in the show notes, but here are the basic instructions. You would begin with silent self-reflection by the individuals in the room on a shared challenge.

You’d want to frame that shared challenge as a question. For example, what opportunities do you see for making progress on this challenge? How would you handle this situation? What ideas or actions do you recommend? Give them some time to self-reflect. Then you’re going to have everyone find a partner and generate ideas in pairs. You’re going to give them the instruction to build on the ideas that they came up with from the self-reflection. Start with those ideas you came up with in self-reflection, and then generate ideas together based on that. Then they will pair up with another pair and share and develop ideas in the foursome.

Same thing that they did before, they’re going to share the ideas they came up with as a pair, and then with the other two people, they will come up with more ideas. This isn’t about the quantity of ideas, it is really about making sure that everyone’s ideas are still represented at the end, but it also encourages the listening and the respect of incorporation of people’s ideas. At the end, everyone will come back together to the full group, and you’ll ask them, “What is one idea that stood out in your conversation?” Then they’ll share one important idea.

Now, does this mean that the other ideas go away? No, it doesn’t. This is for the overall share out. They could share all of their ideas. You can really do this activity any way you want to. The key here is getting everyone to the point where they see themselves in the project that they’ve meaningfully contributed.

Bob: I love that practice. Thank you so much for sharing it. That’s it for this episode. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend. We’ll be back next week with a practice for finding what is important and meaningful to you and to others. Until then, keep practicing.

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Kalin Goble: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of OneOp, and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U.S. Department of Defense under Award Number 2023-48770-41333.

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